Inconsolable Sufferings

In February 2018, a headline of Daily Mail Online, UK, reads – “Heartbroken man carries a child’s body as death toll passes 400 including nearly 100 children in latest bombing raid by Assad’s forces in Syrian region declared ‘Hell on earth’.”

- Ellora De

This massacre happened in Eastern Ghouta - the last major rebel-held area near Damascus, Syria and 400,000 people have been under siege there since 2013. The image of the news showed a distressed man from a rebel-held area, cradling the body of a dead child. This headline reminded me of another one of 2013 from the same publication – “Syria’s darkest hour: Hundreds of children’s bodies piled high after nerve gas attack near Damascus leaves up to 1,300 dead.”

Innocent cries

The civil war in Syria is continuing for nearly seven years since its start in March, 2011. The first strike of shock took place after 15 school children were reportedly arrested and tortured for writing anti-government graffiti on a wall. The children of Syria have been the worst affected of the ensuing civil war. Their tender minds are ill-equipped to grasp or combat the violence and atrocities associated with the war.

Mohamed, a 13-year-old boy of Deraa, Syria, told the BBC, “Before the war we used to play and enjoy ourselves, but after the war we became frightened by the sound of mortar shells and explosions. We no longer dared to go out to play.”

The deprived innocent minds

More than four million people in Syria, half of them children, had to leave their homes and country. Many families are escaping to neighbouring countries like Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq and are taking refuge in special camps. Children in Syria are not getting proper education as many schools have been closed because of the war. The children who have immigrated to other countries do not have access to adequate educational facilities. In Lebanon, according to the BBC, 1,38,000 immigrated children of Syria, out of the total 3,38,000, do not go to school. In Jordan, this number is 77,000.

The initiatives towards peace